The hotel foyer in turmoil, Nigerian women argue
loudly about their taxi fare. I wished I had been
as brave with my Sikh driver who had scammed
me mercilessly.

Hijras smothered in kajal accost me,
I settle for one hundred rupees. Aravan, not
greedy. Oh! that the Sikh would become
her devotee. I spurned the offer of fellatio,
not wanting to see their wounded holes.

Personnel fawned. How brave to ignore
the riots and change hotels, When I spoke
of the shootings, he said,'The Continental is so impersonal.'We both knew he meant crooked.

Passing through crossroads, a Gurkha
officer had pointed his baton, smart
in starched Khaki complemented
by his tan skin and black moustache
his precise military movements
that shed death at the point
of his cane. Vishnu incarnate,
destroyer of worlds.

A soldier fired, hitting one of the crowd.
As they fled, the officer turned to my Fiat,
pointed the way, we sped off, crunching glass

Beckenbauer had raved, 'Shit country!' He
had lain in a ditch, unfamiliar with India,
he resented the crowd. Lucky, he was not
a woman police constable. These things
happen in Britain’s former empire, life or death
hung on the whim of a Gurkha officer.

'Raza Academy apologises, Muslims could not
have been responsible for the molestation
of the women constables as that would have been
contrary to Islam.' Times of India